Monday, April 19, 2010

This Day in History, This State in Politics

•April 19, 1775: the Lexington, MA shot that started the Revolutionary War
•April 19, 1993: the Waco fire concluding the ill-fated Branch Davidians raid
•April 19, 1995: bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma  City
•April 19, 2010: Todd’s first day at his new job (then rally at Langan’s at 7 with me)

But on a more local political note:

You know (one of) the odd thing(s) about the governor and legislature being mired in scandal here in New York?  It means that with so many Democrats, including the governor, disgraced, the next governor will simply be…a different Democrat.  The Republicans have yet to put forth a credible opponent to the likely Democratic primary winner, the talented Andrew Cuomo.  The GOP has offered only a Dem-turned-sudden-”Republican,” a guy no one’s heard of, a solidly-ideological-conservative type who sadly keeps having to explain mini-scandals like why his office forwarded racist e-mails, and Rick Lazio, the ex-U.S. rep who sounded like a mediocre high school debater during his failed Senate run against Hillary Clinton ten years ago and manages to be on roughly two sides of an amazing array of issues.

Maybe Gov. Paterson should start openly saying, “Why shouldn’t I do crazy stuff?  There’s no opposition party anyway!”

Add to all this the weirdness of Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch arguably being an unconstitutional appointment and Mayor Bloomberg having steamrollered his way over term limits to stay in office for what will be twelve years, and you have a state that may at some point find itself with a halfway-acceptable governor and a halfway-acceptable mayor who don’t belong in office, and with an unopposed party waiting in the wings to cause more mishaps.  For a state with many impressive accomplishments, politics is not really our forte.

4 comments:

Gerard said...

You, sir, are mistaken.

Say Hello To Steve Levy

Gerard said...

-The chief executive of a county that’s pivotal to building a majority coalition for any prospective GOP nominee.

-Tremendous crossover appeal to both Democrats and independents.

-Incredibly popular among white ethnics, which is essential to victory.

-The keystone of his platform dovetails perfectly with anti-tax, anti-incumbent, anti-regulation mood of the country.

Aside from the fact that he’d be denied the Conservative Party line, there are virtually no downsides to his candidacy, IMO.

Todd Seavey said...

I hope you’re right.

Gerard said...

His chief problem is getting his name on the primary ballot. None of the GOP chairman from New York City will support him at the state convention, but that still leaves close to sixty county chairmen who are open to persuasion.

At the very least, his fund raising prowess in comparison to his opponents -I don’t think Lazio’s campaign has even half a million dollars cash on hand-and support from Chairman Ed Cox should help further his ambitions.